The present invention relates to apparatus for handling and packaging food products, and more particularly, to handling and packaging of chip-type food products.
A variety of types of handling and packaging equipment has been available in the past. Chip-type food products, for example, may be inserted into a bag in a random manner merely by dropping the chips through a chute directed into the bag. Such package-filling equipment is not suitable for packaging uniformly shaped, nested chips. Packaging of such nested chips may be carried out by hand; however, depositing of the uniformly shaped, nested chips in packages is particularly difficult and may be time consuming. One satisfactory apparatus for depositing of uniformly shaped, nested chips in a package is disclosed in commonly assigned U.S. Patent Application Ser. No. 616,749, filed Sept. 25, 1975 now U.S. Pat. No. 4,048,786. The present invention may be used in conjunction with the apparatus disclosed and claimed in such patent application.
The present invention provides apparatus for handling and segregating a column of nested chips. The segregated column may contain a predetermined number of chips, for example, the number needed to fill a container. Such column of nested chips may subsequently be fed into the loading reservoir described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,048,786. The present apparatus may be used for handling such snack chips as potato chips, wheat chips, rye chips, rice chips and the like.